]]>https://featherglass.com/2012/07/09/these-golden-hours-part-ii/feed/3MingBy the RiverPinkhttps://featherglass.com/2012/05/21/pink/
https://featherglass.com/2012/05/21/pink/#respondMon, 21 May 2012 01:25:21 +0000http://featherglass.com/?p=6717Read More ›]]>The last in a 12-part series on colour.

Wonderment

Then a wind blew;
And he who had forgot he moved
Lonely amid the green and silver morning weather,
Suddenly grew
Aware of clouds and trees
Gleaming and white and shafted, shaken together
And blown to music by the ruffling breeze.

Like flush of wings
The moment passed: he stood
Dazzled with blossom in the swaying wood;
Then he remembered how, through all swift things,
This mortal scene stands built of memories,—
Shaped by the wise
Who gazed in breathing wonderment,
And left us their brave eyes
To light the ways they went.

Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967), The Old Huntsman and Other Poems (1918)

]]>https://featherglass.com/2012/05/21/pink/feed/0MingNothing could match what they'd had, for the simple reason that they could never have it again. Brownhttps://featherglass.com/2012/05/11/brown/
https://featherglass.com/2012/05/11/brown/#commentsFri, 11 May 2012 04:29:45 +0000http://featherglass.com/?p=6714Read More ›]]>The eleventh in a 12-part series on Colour.

It’s not a colour you notice. It’s a wood floor you stand on, it’s a door you walk through, it’s the trunks of trees whose leaves you look at. And when it’s on cats, it’s the classiest, most inimitable shade of brown you can find.

What is Brown?

Brown is the color of a country road, back of a turtle, back of a toad. Brown is cinnamon and morning toastand the good smell of the Sunday roast. Brown is the color of work and the sound of a river,Brown is bronze and a bow and a quiver.Brown is the house on the edge of town where wind is tearing the shingles down. Brown is a freckle, Brown is a moleBrown is the earth when you dig a hole. Brown is the hair on many a headBrown is chocolate and gingerbread. Brown is a feeling you get inside when wondering makes your mind grow wide.Brown is a leather shoe and a good glove — Brown is as comfortable as love.

Mary O’Neill

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https://featherglass.com/2012/05/11/brown/feed/2Minglet sleeping cats lieOrangehttps://featherglass.com/2012/05/04/orange/
https://featherglass.com/2012/05/04/orange/#respondFri, 04 May 2012 10:26:41 +0000http://featherglass.com/?p=6660Read More ›]]>Part Eight in a series on Colour.

Babylon
The child alone a poet is:
Spring and Fairyland are his.
Truth and Reason show but dim,
And all's poetry with him.
Rhyme and music flow in plenty
For the lad of one-and-twenty,
But Spring for him is no more now
Than daisies to a munching cow;
Just a cheery pleasant season,
Daisy buds to live at ease on.
. . . Robin, and Red Riding Hood
Take together to the wood,
And Sir Galahad lies hid
In a cave with Captain Kidd.
None of all the magic hosts,
None remain but a few ghosts
Of timorous heart, to linger on
Weeping for lost Babylon.
Robert Graves

According to Pantone which forecasts colours each year, Summer 2012’s colour is Tangerine Tango. Think of vermillion, blushing, and you’ve got it.

I’ve never owned or worn much vermillion in my life—not even lipstick, no—partly because I have this idea you have to feel a million bucks before you can slip on anything vermillion, and I’ve never quite felt like a million bucks. The time I honestly can say I felt a million bucks I was dressed in clouds of white.

And all the other happy times, brilliant birthdays and life-affirming other-people’s-birth days, candlelit dinners and garden nights, under African skies or American, lunches of laughter, Tiffany-shopping days, ghost-train and Wonderland times, summers in a cathedral of cedars, sitting on a swing catapulting out to sea, all these golden hours have not been vermillioned.

Credit: Wikipedia

Our lives are made in these small hours
These little wonders, these twists and turns of fate
Time falls away but these small hours
These small hours still remain — Little Wonders, Rob Thomas, musician

There is a keyboard riff of a tune by one of my favourite bands which I know by heart. (To listen, click on the link below.) It just so happened to fit the chord progression of a song at yesterday’s service. I didn’t realize this until I started improvising to create a long musical backdrop to the leader’s impromptu prayer which he felt called to pray before leading everyone into the song.

This took me by surprise. Not so much the impromptu prayer, for musicians have to be prepped for this kind of contingency, but that the riff matched the chordal structure of the song and that I played the riff without thinking twice whether it would fit. It was almost taking a risk, yet my fingers seemed to move automatically as if obeying some instinct I did not recognize at the time. More important, this unassuming riff, which I had not played for months, suited the mood of the moment; people were able to press in, without distraction, into the Holy of Holies.

It wasn’t as if I was playing terrifically well, either, so don’t get me wrong here. I was merely a channel, a means, through which the King could have His way with His people.

It just so happens that the colour of the tune by Keane, is without a doubt, purple. And this experience I described is also purple in its tones of wonder for I stand amazed that the little I know can be inexplicably used by the King of kings, can sound as if it came, not from the instrument, but elsewhere, perhaps from the heavenly places of our Lord.

Time is purpleJust before nightWhen most peopleTurn on the light —But if you don’t it’sA beautiful sight.

Green is grass
And the leaves of the trees
Green is the smell
Of a country breeze.
Green is lettuce
And sometimes the sea.
When green is a feeling
You pronounce it N.V.Green is a coolness
You get in the shade
Of the tall old woods
Where the moss is made.
Green is a flutter
That comes in Spring
When frost melts out
Of everything.
Green is a grasshopper
Green is jade
Green is hiding
In the shade—
Green is an olive
And a pickle.
The sound of green
Is a water-trickle.
Green is the world
After the rain
Bathed and beautiful
Again.
April is green
Peppermint, too.
Every elf has
One green shoe.
Under a grape arbor
Air is green
With sprinkles of sunlight
In between.
Green is the meadow,
Green is the fuzz
That covers up
Where winter was.
Green is ivy
And honeysuckle vine.
Green is yours
And green is mine….

— Mary O’Neill

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https://featherglass.com/2012/04/26/green/feed/0MingI need a vacationBluehttps://featherglass.com/2012/04/24/blue/
https://featherglass.com/2012/04/24/blue/#commentsTue, 24 Apr 2012 01:58:32 +0000http://featherglass.com/?p=6605Read More ›]]>Part four in a series on colour.

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay. Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay

This beautiful poem, when heard with Stevie Wonder’s ballad, Stay Gold, brings me back to salad days, when a combination of circumstances and teen angst made more for the moody blues than the ability to see anything gold on the horizon. But it was always there, the gold bits, and I picked these up from the ground whenever I could.

They came in the form of my diaries, books, chats with friends walking in the rain (I did that quite a bit back then and there is an affinity for the rain that is perhaps not so ordinary.)

Gold is best in tiny doses, like gold sandals, or a ring.

Interestingly, gold paired with white, or with black, or both black and white, is elegant richness indeed.

]]>https://featherglass.com/2012/04/23/6579/feed/1MingGolden SunlightWhitehttps://featherglass.com/2012/04/20/white/
https://featherglass.com/2012/04/20/white/#respondFri, 20 Apr 2012 15:10:31 +0000http://featherglass.com/?p=6551Read More ›]]>The second in a 12-part series on colour. Each post will feature a colour poem.

White is black’s perfect counterpart, is everything black pretends not to be. It is clean and serene, calming too, and optimistic. Unlike sand or beige, white is not a neutral, for this colour of all colours always makes a statement.

It has been said that there are at least 16 shades of black. White easily doubles that.

White is high maintenance, urbane and sophisticated. It is rustic simplicity on Greek houses on the Mediterranean.

White lends quiet power. Other colours, paired with white, get a boost, stand out, and come into their own.

White is a pearl, and featherlight.

I do believe I love white as much as black.

What is White?

White is a dove
And lily of the valley
And a puddle of milk
Spilled in an alley—
A ship’s sail
A kite’s tail
a wedding veil
Hailstones and
Halibut bones
And some people’s
Telephones.
The hottest and most blinding light
Is white.
And breath is white
When you blow it out on a frosty night.
White is the shining absence of all color
Then absence is white
Out of touch
Out of sight.
White is marshmallow
And vanilla ice cream
And the part you can’t remember
In a dream.
White is the sound
Of a light foot walking
White is the beautiful
Broken lace
Of snowflakes falling
On your face.
You can smell white
In a country room
Toward the end of May
When the cherries bloom.

The sun descending in the west,
The evening star does shine;
The birds are silent in their nest,
And I must seek for mine.
The moon, like a flower
In heaven’s high bower,
With silent delight,
Sits and smiles on the night. — Night, William Blake

The last lap, as it were, of the Lenten season. Just nine more days to go.

I will be writing about my insights of Lent 2012, the lessons I learned, etc after Easter on April 8th. As it stands, it appears that numbers are acquiring an unsual significance this time round.

For instance, this happens to be my 31st day of Lent 2012. It also happens to be the day someone I know turns the same number of years. Along similar lines, my last post featured the significance of 3:16 in a timely way.

Are the numbers significant?

Only if one sees a connection. I’ve always been big on connections, linking unlikely and odd things, seeing links where only a few do, being a people-connector (when the mood or need arises.)

Numbers are metaphors of meaning, and many branches of mathematics deal with that. Consequently, much of life is understood through numbers, because they are symbolic, calculable, sizeable and yes, philosophical.

Apropos of nothing, from the wellspring of numbers bloomed an image of an umbrella. I’d forgotten all about it. Until now.

Dear friend, I remember you lent me a stylish black Umbrella years ago: a sudden afternoon Monsoon swept in, so you plucked the thing out of a stylish black Bag. You said it would keep me dry walking in the rain

Brewing Under the surface of placid waters were storms I Never knew you had to face innumerous Numerous times, usually umbrellaless Yet you were always under the shelter of His wings.

I leaned on you today
I regularly hurt but never say
I nearly wore the window through . . .

Where was air-sea rescue?
The cavalry with tea and sympathy?

You were there, —
Puncture repair.

I leaned on you today
I regularly hurt but never say
You patched me up and sent me on my way . . .
I leaned on you today . . . — Elbow, Puncture Repair (2006)

Only one minute and 48 seconds long, this song says much more than the time it takes to say it.

It reminds me of Chopin’s haunting Prelude in E Minor (Op 28. No.4) of which the score fits neatly onto one page, is played in an approachable key, and lasts one minute longer than the alternate rock group’s Puncture Repair.

Deep things, expressed elegantly and succinctly, are some of the most beautiful things in this world and in other worlds which are filled with other songs.

Seventeen days til Easter. It’s the eye of the storm; a lull, a borrowed peace.

There’s a line in an old, old song

Let Him have those things that hold You

And have I?

Then His Spirit like a dove
Will descend upon your life
And make you whole

In some ways, yes. I used to think that as we weakly make the effort to let go, like a child relinquishing a toy not approved by his parents, He helps us get by through incidences or outcomes which comfort us.

I say comfort because these events reassure us that perhaps we are on the right track, the road that leads farther up and further in.

]]>https://featherglass.com/2012/03/21/spirit-song/feed/0MingSailing into a storm of blessed activityFor A Mondayhttps://featherglass.com/2012/03/19/for-a-monday/
https://featherglass.com/2012/03/19/for-a-monday/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2012 02:27:39 +0000http://featherglass.com/?p=6297Read More ›]]>And if it rains all day,‘Call on you, I’ll call on youLike I used to slide down besideAnd wrap you in storiesTailored entirely for you . . .

Spitfire thin and strung like a violinI was;Yours was the face with a graceFrom a different ageYou were the sun in my Sunday morningYou were the sun in my Sunday morningTelling me never to goSo I’ll live on the smileAnd move down the aisleOf the last bus homeAnd if you’re running lateThis is where I’ll goKnow I’ll always, (always) wait — British indie band Elbow, Great Expectations (2005)

It’s a blissful mix of hopeful love and funereal sadness, against a Spanish guitar, sweet piano and beating drums, with the buzz of an electronic angel flying overhead. It’s devastating, unflinching and one of the finest songs we’ve heard all year. —NME Album Reviews, 19 Sept 2005.

Credit: eilish.deviantart.com/art/Fairies-99603591

The first time I properly heard Chopin was when I was given a casette tape (yes) of the pianist’s ethereal Nocturnes, those will-o’-the-wisps of night music, evanescent and evasive, quite out of one’s grasp if one were only a recreational piano player.

I used to pop the tape into my mini-compo (yes), and those dancing phrases and steps would pirouette in and around my room as I collapsed on the bed, head towards the floor, reading, writing, thinking, dreaming. Those were quiet Saturday afternoons in my childhood home off Holland Road.

The fragile notes, the well-intentioned pauses, remind me sometimes of the thoughts of a poet-friend, old in mind but light of foot, disciplined and imbued with a sensitivity beyond measure.

Every street lamp that I pass Beats like a fatalistic drum,And through the spaces of the darkMidnight shakes the memoryAs a madman shakes a dead geranium.

— T S Eliot, Rhapsody on a Windy Night

A rainstorm ran into me on the road today. It was a new experience. The soft rain beat insistently, forcing my eyes to take turns opening. I brushed a soaked skein of hair from my cheek. Water swirled down my forehead and drip-dropped through my vision.

But the air was cool on my skin, and I looked at the lighted street lamps in the still-bright evening sky. I ran without much thought, the rhythm of a song in my mind.